Date Night

Rating: PG
Category: AU
Pairing(s): Cid/Vincent
Warnings: None
Summary: Cid and Vincent go out on a date. The only problem is Cid has a very strange definition of “date”.
Notes: For Orasa

“So… you’re dead, huh?”

Vincent was doing his best to ignore the muscled moronic malcontent in the letterman’s jacket, but it was getting rather difficult. If he were a horse his ears would be back. Good grief he could not believe Cid asked him to wait in a college bar. What in the hell made him say yes? Vincent did not look at the loser next to him as he replied.

“Yes.”

“How did you manage that?” asked the young, strong and allegedly handsome college jock.

Vincent’s ears flattened a little further. He was seated at the counter, arms folded and resting on the top of the bar, head lowered. Yuffie referred to this as the ‘Don’t push me’ pose.

“I was shot in the stomach and left to bleed to death.”

“Bet that hurt.”

Wow. What a genius. This kid was probably the top of his special-ed class. Vincent tried to ignore the way the guy’s eyes flicked up and down his body.

“So… can I see your scar?”

Vincent held up his spectacular brass claws. “Want to guess what I do with these?”

“Open letters?”

Vincent drew back to give the snot-nosed brat a demonstration, and was scooped up and held in a strong pair of arms.

“I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?”

Vincent hissed like an irate snake.

“There, there, woobie,” said Cid. “Daddy make it allllll better fo da widdle snuzzums.”

Vincent growled quietly. “You couldn’t have found a quieter place to ask me to meet you than a bar that caters to gay college students?”

“You found the building didn’t you?”

Vincent just glared as Cid carried him out of the bar and into the quiet darkness. They followed the well-worn path across the campus, then, instead of taking him to the parking lot, Cid changed direction and began heading towards a part of the campus that was no longer in use.

“Where are we going? And why are you carrying me?”

“One, it’s a surprise, and two, since I know how much you love surprises, so you can’t escape.”

A deadly brass claw snipped his cigarette in half. Cid grinned.

“Be nice or you won’t get dessert.”

“I demand you tell me where we are going.”

“You’ll just get mad.”

“I’ll get mad if you don’t tell me.”

“Fine. My cousin’s wedding. I needed a date and I couldn’t tell you in advance because you’d just hide.”

Vincent’s claws shot out and dug deep into the trunk of a tree, stopping Cid cold. Cid sighed.

“Valentine let go.”

“No.”

“Vincent…”

“You’ll have to cut my hand off.”

“I can wait as long as you can.”

“Oh yeah? Who here sulked in a casket for thirty years?”

Cid sighed quietly. “Okay fine, I am not taking you to a wedding. But please don’t ask me where we are going because I want it to be a surprise. All right?”

“You promise me that we are not going to a wedding?”

“I swear on my pilot’s license.”

Vincent relinquished his grasp on the tree, allowing Cid to continue to carry him across the campus lawn of the very old and prestigious college to the worn marble steps of a newly-deserted building.

“What’s this?” asked Vincent.

“Well until a week ago it was the oldest college in the world, and the most prestigious. Then some dickless wonder got it into his head that modern facilities would be much better and they closed the old college down. Eight hundred years of history, tossed away like nothing.” Cid carried Vincent into the huge library, the walls lined with centuries old shelves carved of oak and ebony. The great Cathedral-style windows let in the moonlight, and there was a refined silence that could only come from great age.

“Well what do you think?” asked Cid, setting Vincent down.

“It’s beautiful,” said Vincent. “But what are we doing here?”

“We’re gonna live here. You and me.”

Vincent thought about that. “Run that by me again?”

“The Historical society needs someone to look after the building, and I need a place suitable for asking the most beautiful man on the planet to live with me. I figure an eight hundred year old castle outside of Wutai qualifies. Look, we don’t even have to stock the library. And you can have your own room until you decide you can’t keep your hands off me anymore and fall into my bed.”

“Whut?” said Vincent. “Wait… back up… what?”

“I thought you would like the tower. It’s beautiful. It used to be the room for the dean. It has a bed that has to be three hundred years old, and it has curtains all around it.”

“Cid! What are you talking about?! You can’t just… buy a castle and move me into it without even asking me if I want to live with you!”

“Well I had to! If I asked you might say no!”

“But why do you even want me to live with you?”

“Because I… really really wanna be with you.”

Vincent just stared, shaking his head, trying to process what he had heard. “What?”

“Well you’re my best friend, aren’t you? Who else would I fall in love with?”

Vincent just stared at Cid as if Cid was a space alien and Vincent was the RCA Victor dog.

“Cid don’t you think there should be a little more build-up between ‘come have a drink with me’ and ‘marry me?’ This is our first date!”

“Well I have to move fast! You keep vanishing for months at a time! Look… I have it all figured out…”

Vincent watched as Cid scrambled around the inside of the old building, heading up the hand carved wooden steps to the upper levels.

“We can have the bedrooms all up here. And the lower part can be like… the living room. Where we have people over to visit and all that domestic shit. And look down here…” Cid ran back down the staircase to a large door, pushing it open. “Look at this kitchen! It’s huge! We could cook for an army! We could let the kids have their friends over!”

“What kids?!” demanded Vincent.

“Well the one’s we’re gonna have!”

Vincent blinked at him for a few moments, then turned around and began walking away.

“You’re high. I’m leaving.”

Cid chased after him, catching hold of his arm and turning Vincent around. “I’m not high. I’m just… trying to get the point across before you vanish again for another three years.”

“Cid this entire evening will have been the cause of me vanishing for another three years.”

“Oh come on, don’t be that way. Look I set up a picnic for us on the upper balcony….”

Vincent was scooped up like a favourite cat and packed upstairs. He wondered how badly it would hurt if he jabbed his claws into Cid’s ass and Cid dropped him. How badly it would hurt himself, that was…

Cid carried Vincent to the topmost level of the old building and out onto an observation deck. Hardly what Vincent would have called a balcony, but he was in no mood to explain the differences to Cid. He was set down on the wide oaken floor, and looked up through the ancient crystal panels at a perfect sky of black with silver dots, a glowing white disc presiding over all.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Cid, gazing up at the night sky.

Vincent gazed at the stars and moon, saying nothing. It was beautiful, there was no denying that. The silence seemed to make Cid nervous.

“Wine?” said Cid.

“All right. I hate college bars, my feet are wet from walking across the grass to the pub, and the air is too damp, it’s affecting my bronchitis.”

“Hilarious,” said Cid. He went to the small table he had set up for their picnic and opened a bottle of red wine, pouring them each a glass. Vincent noticed it was his favourite brand as he accepted the glass, then moved closer to the huge windows.

“It is beautiful,” said Vincent. “I just… don’t know about this.”

Cid approached Vincent, drawing near to stand behind him.

“You can’t just keep wandering,” said Cid quietly. “You need a home.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Cid. I’m…”

“A little damaged emotionally, I know,” said Cid. “Actually make that more than a little. But I don’t see how roaming the planet like a displaced soul is gonna help with that.”

Vincent sipped his wine, saying nothing. He felt Cid slip an arm around his waist, and smiled slightly.

“And what if I said yes? What would you do then? I don’t think guarding over old books is quite your style.”

“Well, no,” Cid conceded. “But Wutai has all this open flat space, perfect for setting up a hangar where a slightly-used pilot can follow his dream of designing experimental aircraft. And… living with the most beautiful man on the planet.”

“Cid… I…. I can’t just show up to join you on what was supposed to be a simple date and consent to marry you.”

“I know,” said Cid. He took Vincent by the shoulders, gently turning him around so he could look into the taller man’s eyes. “I didn’t expect you to say you would marry me. But you vanish. You take off for weeks and months at a time, sometimes even years. I just… wanted to let you know that you have a warm place to stay and someone who cares about you before you vanish again. You don’t have to sit alone in an abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere thinking about what you lost in the past. You can sit here in an abandoned college in the middle of Wutai and think about what you could have in the future.”

Vincent smiled slightly. Cid pressed his case.

“All I’m offering you tonight is a place to live. So I know where you are, and that you’re safe. I’m offering you a stable home and a chance to heal. I’m not forcing you to stay. I’m just hoping you will.”

Vincent gazed at him, processing the offer. It would be nice to rest, to be secure in a place where he was a welcome inhabitant, not merely a strange ghost. And if worst came to worst, he could always just leave again, couldn’t he?

“I’ll stay,” said Vincent softly.

Cid drew him close and held him tightly, and Vincent could sense the relief flooding over him. Funny how it mattered more to Cid what happened to him than it did to himself, but maybe he owed Cid at least that much. Cid cared about him, and it wasn’t fair to repay that with grief. He certainly knew how that felt.

“I’ll stay,” Vincent repeated quietly. “But I can’t say for how long, or how I will feel.”

“That’s fine,” said Cid, still holding him close. “I’m sorry I kinda sprang all this on you, I just… didn’t know when I would see you again.”

“You know you could have just given me a glass of wine and a slice of blueberry cheesecake and told me you had feelings for me instead of dragging me in here and telling me about where our kids would play.”

“Yeah that probably would have worked too.” Cid gently nuzzled him, touching the tip of his nose to Vincent’s. “I’m going to kiss you.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes I am.”

“No…. you are not. I haven’t even had dinner.”

“For a guy who used to be a Turk, you stink at taking orders.”

Vincent smiled slightly. “You’re assuming that I took orders as a Turk. I was… not… Turk material.”

“Then why did you become one?” asked Cid.

“Good pay, I got to play with guns, and chicks love a man in a suit.”

Cid rolled his eyes. “You were young when you joined, weren’t you?”

“It shows, does it?”

“A little.” Cid drew him slightly closer. “This is nice, isn’t it?”

Vincent smiled. “It is,” he admitted. “But if you really want a kiss, you’ll have to feed me dinner.”

Cid touched his nose to Vincent’s once more. “Do you like scallops and lobster bisque? And for dessert we have cheesecake but it’s blackberry, not blueberry.”

“Lobster?” said Vincent.

“Yeah,” said Cid. “Is… that okay? Do you like lobster?”

Vincent found himself smiling once more. “For lobster… you get a kiss.”